For readers who missed last week’s fundraising post, this blog is now an Amazon affiliate. Which means that, should you do any shopping via this link in the UK, or this link in the US, or using the Amazon search widgets at the top left and right of this page, your host receives a small fee at no extra cost to you. If that’s not an incentive to shop, and shop deliriously, I don’t know what is.
Among the items already bought this way are several books found on my own shelves, including Fabian Tassano’s excellent Mediocracy, a sort of devil’s dictionary of modern inversions and dishonesties; David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin’s One-Party Classroom, an eye-widening overview of dogma and question-begging masquerading as education; and Thomas Sowell’s no less marvellous Intellectuals and Society, which was discussed here and here. An extract:
If you happen to believe in free markets, judicial restraint, traditional values, etc., then you are just someone who believes in free markets, judicial restraint and traditional values. There is no personal exaltation resulting from those beliefs. But to be for “social justice” and “saving the environment” or to be “anti-war” is more than just a set of beliefs about empirical facts. This vision puts you on a higher moral plane as someone concerned and compassionate, someone who is for peace in the world, a defender of the downtrodden…
In short, one vision makes you somebody special and the other vision does not. These visions are not symmetrical. Because the vision of the anointed is a vision of themselves as well as a vision of the world, when they are defending that vision they are not simply defending a set of hypotheses about external events, they are in a sense defending their very souls – and the zeal and even ruthlessness with which they defend their vision are not surprising under these circumstances.
Should anyone feel compelled to make a direct contribution to the upkeep of this blog, and thereby boost my self-esteem, there’s a PayPal button top left. And by all means use the comments to suggest other items of possible interest. And thanks to Pierce.
Paul Gross and Norman Levitt’s ‘Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science.’ It should be right up your street, David.
It should be right up your street, David.
It is. There’s one on my shelf. I can’t remember which commenter pointed that one out to me. If anyone’s interested, there’s a link here.
I’d recommend Jonah Goldberg’s ‘Liberal Fascism’, a brilliant and comprehensive expose of the close links between modern leftism and fascism. Benjamin Kerstein’s demolition of an old fascist and anti-semite ‘Diary of an Anti-Chomskyite.’ If you like a few laughs along the way here’s a couple of comedians: Dominic Frisby ‘Life After the State’ or Evan Sayet ‘The Kindergarden of Eden ‘How the Modern Liberal Thinks,’ although I think that last one should be ‘How the Modern Liberal Avoids Thinking’ Incidentally David if you liked Fabian’s ‘Mediocracy’ you might also like his book on the medical profession:’The Power of Life and Death’. Hair raising!
you might also like his book on the medical profession: ‘The Power of Life and Death’. Hair raising!
Heh. I know it well. And the Goldberg book.
“…I’d recommend Jonah Goldberg’s ‘Liberal Fascism’…”
See also Goldberg’s ‘The Tyranny of Clichés’ – I found it more entertaining than LF but no less interesting and equally important.
Consider this another vote for The Tyranny of Cliches. It works well as an audiobook. Informative, entertaining (though it does drag a bit toward the middle) and a better book than LF overall.
While Goldberg’s presentation of LF on Book TV http://www.booktv.org/ was very interesting, it is frequently the case that the Book TV presentation is way better than the book, and that was true in this case. That said, the chapter on Benito Mussolini is, for a Yank of my generation, worth the price of admission.
FWIW, http://www.c-span.org/video/?203535-1/book-discussion-liberal-fascism is the direct link to Goldberg’s 2008 presentation of LF. Time sure flies when you’re having fun…
Any chance of getting an American Amazon ad link? I don’t assume they have the sense to ship from the US just because I happen to be ordering from there.
Squires,
Will look into that.
In future I’ll go via your widget then David. Makes no diff to me, and if you get some money then that’s a plus.
Your host endorses the above message wholeheartedly.
Happy to help, David.
Might I suggest Economics in One Lesson, by Hazlitt?
It’s an excellent intro to economics and the common fallacies that people spout.
Squires,
Any chance of getting an American Amazon ad link?
Done. See top left.